Hopes and Dreams for California Housing: 2025 Edition
Looking back to look forward, and thinking about Los Angeles
When I started this Substack in January 2022, we were still deep in pandemic. There was certainly light at the end of the tunnel, but the uncertainty was still there. Masks were still on, many places and offices were still closed, and a new normal seemed far away. We knew this had done damage, hurt people, and opened up opportunities for change, just like all crises do.
Fast forward three years and it feels like a lifetime ago. We Californians had an advantage during the pandemic. Once people figured out what Asia has known for generations - that masks kept you and folks around you safe from airborne diseases - we already owned them (and the good kind too). The fire season of 2017, which destroyed the Coffey Park neighborhood in Santa Rosa, started a string of horrendous years all up and down the coast.
I’ll never forget the image from my San Francisco apartment in 2020 of a sky that looked like anything but high noon in California in September.
While the pandemic has receded for now, the masks are back, at least in Southern California. Texts come in about friends and friends of friends whose houses are gone but families fortunately safe. Others are holed up in the houses of family or friends, as they white knuckle the way-too-fast-moving madness in Pasadena and the Palisades, in Sylmar and the Hollywood Hills. It looks like 1991 Oakland meets 1906 San Francisco, or like someone took Mike Davis’s Ecology of Fear and turned it into a Hollywood movie. It’s times like these that make you wonder what Joan Didion would think, but in this case we know because she wrote about it in the mid 1960’s. Los Angeles Notebook is terrifyingly prescient right now.
The return of fire isn't the only traumatic comeback that we face in 2025. Like with wildfire, bad men with terrible ideas are nothing new to California - we have certainly contributed our share to the world. The ideas they worship and weaponize - xenophobia, distrust, colonialism, extraction no matter the cost - aren’t as old as wildfire, but they are seemingly as endemic to our cultural landscape as fire is to our natural one. Just like with wildfire, bad men with terrible ideas are as old as humanity and found almost everywhere. And just like with wildfire, whatever there is that is natural or endemic is now overshadowed by just how much worse we have made it.
These are also not our only fires. As David Wyatt’s points out in Five Fires, one of my favorite books about California, the fire of racism is also central to this state’s landscape.1
It’s also only ever smoldering, never completely out.
Looking Back to Look Forward
At this point in my life, I’ve largely quit the history business. I’ve gone all in on the future. Schafran Strategies is all about looking forward, trying to figure out who and what needs to change in California housing and how to do it. I’ve done my part to explain how we got here, and I mostly want to talk about tomorrow or next year or 2030 when I’m not laser focused on right now. Becoming a biodad for the first time has made this impetus even stronger.
We’ve launched a new website, SchafranStrategies.com. If you have any ideas or want to work together in 2025, please reach out.
No matter my resolve to look forward, it’s hard to process just how stunningly new 2025 feels already. The good news about this uncertainty is that it’s prompted the historian in me to wake up and remember that everything is not as new as it can seem. The even better thing is that the new Alex - that practical consultant who works with the world we have, not just the world we had or the world we want - agrees with the historian.
As much as it can feel different, it’s not. Especially in housing.
Housing has its own rhythm and logic, one only partly connected to the political climate or the climate climate around it. Housing - both the homes themselves and the industry to build and manage them - changes incredibly slowly and can be destroyed overnight, especially in California. We’ve always needed permanent housing and temporary housing, and this is only ever more true during and after disasters.
As much as I want to look forward, I think that a certain amount of look back can be helpful for team housing, especially right now.
It can help remind us that while the intensity may be rising, we’ve been in the fire before. It can show us the historical patterns and tropes that are everywhere. It may be a brave new world, but it is not the end of history.
This look backwards of course isn’t just for big history. It’s a basic practice many of our organizations either do all the time or should do more of: ask whether we still think the things we think we think.
With this in mind, I went back to the 2022 edition of this post - the one that started it all, and asked myself whether these are still good good ideas, no matter the fires that currently burn? I listed 12 ideas that year, an opening gauntlet for both California Housing and my own writing (and admittedly a hope list for clients wanting to work on these things). They were, in brief:
My 2022 Hopes and Dreams (Still Relevant in 2025)
Find a smart path forward on social housing - and state involvement in housing financing.
Think big - or at least big projects.
Pay greater attention to implementation.
Fix our analytical infrastructure.
Imagine a Fiscal New Deal.
As ideas, I think they still largely hold water, and still are at the heart of any effort to alter the course of our growing housing crisis.
A few have made important progress.
The California Dream For All Program does exist, and was too popular. Social Housing has grown remarkably as an idea, and SB555 passed, meaning the State has to at least think about Social Housing. Condo defect reform is really construction defect reform, and it now exists as a push beyond a few of us nerds - there is even a draft plan based on successful programs in Canada to create a warranty program which will enable us to actually build multifamily homeownership opportunities at scale in California (again).
And people are at least talking about implementation, not only because of failures like what happened to FIHPP, but because we have made so much (painstaking) progress on reforming land use and housing law. It’s now time to make sure that SB4 and so many other streamlining efforts turn into buildings, and all the reforms to Housing Elements, the Housing Accountability Act and other parts of housing law turn into both buildings and better housing law overall - including tenant protections.
Alas, Article 34 repeal actually made it out of the legislature but as far as I can tell, nobody wanted to fund and lead the campaign. We never really doubled down on protecting the vulnerable, and instead had a massively useless and expensive and damaging fight at the ballot about rent control. We do not yet have an ambitious plan around homeownership, defined very broadly, even if more people are talking about it (not just Nikki Beasley and Maeve Elise Brown). People are still so obsessed with policy that they don’t talk nearly enough about industry and the housing economy - and this includes both those who work in industry and those who work in policy. We’re not looking inland, and we’ve gone backwards on megaprojects (thanks to a backwards megaproject). And while I know I am not alone in looking for a fiscal new deal that makes housing and development pencil for jurisdictions, we’ve made little progress in truly cracking that nut (much like I’ve also failed to write about it).
While the list is solid, it was missing many things.
I knew insurance was a problem but was embarrassed by how little I understood it. Homelessness was absent not because I didn’t understand it, but because I was afraid to say anything and didn’t feel like I had anything new to say. This is partly why Tina Lee and I have built Housing After Dark. It lets us talk about all the important housing areas - like insurance and homelessness - where we’re not able to write it ourselves.
I’ve not written enough about a permanent source for housing development, and many other aspects of housing finance reform. I’ve not talked about Permanent Supportive Housing, housing and health, and so much more, and I hope we can get to these this year, either by ourselves or with smart guests (or both!).
The lesson here is not that I am smart, or that I am not particularly influential or powerful,2 but that housing doesn’t change that fast, even in crises. Many of our good ideas still can work - just like many of our bad ideas will remain popular. All of our challenges remain, and some of our assets and most of our organizations.
Despite the brutal reality of what we face in this country, I remain incredibly optimistic - at least about housing.3 It’s partly because of this long history, both good, bad and ugly.
The 2025 List
So what does this mean for 2025? How do we as housers approach the coming few years, both in terms of the opportunities which remain, the vast need which has never gone anywhere, or the chaos, disruption and cruelty which is coming?
How we as housers face the moment is critical. We know that our own failures to address this crisis are part of the problem, and I hope that this can spur people and organizations and institutions to real action and real change. I also hope that housers will see the limit of our responsibility - we hold much responsibility for the housing crisis, and for a piece of the climate crisis, but the larger rebirth of global fascism and racism is bigger than housing or any one system or issue, and sadly always has been.
For much of the policy and system change agenda I laid out in 2022 and have been writing about ever since, it’s critical to keep building. I’ll keep supporting clients who work on these issues, and will keep looking for clients who want to push forward on these issues or the many other critical ideas that I haven’t been able to highlight (check out the new website if you are interested in partnering with us).
I’ll keep writing about social housing and homeownership, and how these two key areas have to come together for either to really succeed. I’ll keep highlighting the importance of transforming the housing industry, and hope to have more Housing After Dark guests who are trying to do just that. I’ll keep getting wonky on construction defects, and hopefully feature efforts to build a new warranty system. I’ll keep nudging on megaprojects, both good and bad, and hopefully have more to say about efforts to build big. I’ll also keep looking for folks trying to transform our ability to build small.
But real progress will take some serious courage for us as a housing industry to build on some of the positive foundations that do exist.
Courage is the theme of this year’s list, and thus it is less a list of ideas for important housing subject areas, and more a set of political exhortations to housers everywhere, hopes and dreams of a different kind.
2025 Hopes and Dreams
I hope we buy more mirrors. This piece from 2023 is the closest to courageous I have gotten on this site, and it bears repeating. The events of 2024 can of course be blamed on others, but nothing in 2024 changes the fact that team housing has a long history of refusing to looking inward for change. Everything I wrote is sadly just as true now as it was 18 months ago. As people prepare to resist and defend, I hope that I hear more from housing leaders about how they and their organizations are changing how they think, act and work.
In the face of those who would go backwards on purpose, or whose program is mostly to denigrate and destroy, we can’t win by defending a status quo that has never been just, or well-intentioned systems that simply don’t work or don’t meet people’s needs. Faced with an avalanche of BS, it will be tempting to craft BS of our own, but we must be more than that. The willingness to admit error will be one of the defining traits in the coming years, and I hope us housers can lead the way in showing that we can handle the truth.4
I hope we can find good leaders who can leave the tent. You hear a lot about ‘big tents” in housing, a euphemism for coalitions which are imagined to be broad, or the “tables” that are being convened by various leaders to push forward housing change. I am a big believer that this kind of work is essential - but it is only a starting point. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen or heard of a table or a tent that was anywhere close to powerful enough to actually produce real housing change on its own.
It’s understandable why our tents and tables are too small or too under-resourced - it’s hard to sit down with people we don’t like or don’t trust, and housing has so many factions and fractions. We will always get value from being in the tent or at the table with our allies and frenemies, but we need to make sure someone is sending emissaries out to meet with others with whom you’d never invite into the tent (and who wouldn’t accept an invite if you did). Empower them to set up much smaller tables in the middle of the field with enough juice at the table to broker real deals that are capable of winning history-making change.
I hope we can help organizations become what they need to become. Too many housers I meet tend to read the political tea leaves based on what current housing groups do or have done. This makes sense obviously - history is very real and hard to ignore. But the questions we need to be asking, especially for certain housing powers that are a) not going anywhere and b) are essential to our housing system is “How do we get this group to change its tune?”
I’m not going to blow up my spot or anyone else’s by listing which groups and how to do it (except to give some props to Aaron Eckhouse and the Sierra Club rebels, and to urge folks to ask whether the group in question is a membership org or not), but this is an essential strategy for 2025 and beyond. I don’t see any path towards actually winning on housing without some of the existing players changing their tunes - there are no powers from outside housing that will ever be able to work both politically and technically to shift housing without the buy-in from the actual housing industry. The good news? We actually can shift a number of the key players in the business over the next decade in incredibly powerful and exciting ways.
Since we know Leaders matter, I hope we can support the good ones. One of my 2024 hopes and dreams was that folks would support BCSH Secretary Tomiquia Moss. I’ll let her comment on whether people did this, but she remains the most important houser in California. I think we need to double down on this support, and I hope Governor Newson and the GO’s housing team see the potential of Secretary Moss to be the history maker that California housing needs.5
She can be one of the convenors of those tables in the field - and already has become one - and we need to empower other leaders like her who can see across the silos, vested interests, petty debates and ideological nonsense that hold us back. This is extra important given what will be done to HUD and other federal agencies, and what will be done by what remains of them. We need the full housing apparatus in California to be able to step into the void as much as possible, and there is work to be done.
(Local) Leaders matter, and I hope we can help them matter in new ways. The good results from November were local. Personally, I’m very excited about some of the people who went from my ballot to elected office, and we need to support good housers in new ways. Especially for local leaders who want to be awesome on housing, this means a few things that I will come back to in a proper piece this year. One important thing is helping them see beyond policy - local electeds need to be leaders who help make deals happen and who work to transform agencies, bureaucracies, public private partnerships, and how the housing economy actually works. Local laws and budgets are not enough to make housing change, especially at the local level.
I hope we get some new leaders. If there is one hard truth facing us as housers that we may be loath to admit, it is that some leaders in California housing have to move on. It’s time for us to thank certain people for their service, especially those who are preventing their organizations or agencies or companies from being who we need them to be (see above). The kind of change we need inside housing will require next level (and often next generation) leadership. Stewardship is admirable, but it’s not enough to actually achieve what we know has to happen. If you are reading this and you’re in a position to help someone move on, or help someone new and more visionary step in, I hope you can do this.
I hope that intra-housing fights that could come, don’t. We’ve made a lot of progress on coalition building over the years. There is potential for us to take things to the next level, a grand bargain for a bigger housing transformation. There is also the possibility of renewed infighting, especially about money, especially about transfer taxes. Down one road lies a renewed housing economy with more (and better) homes and jobs and housing businesses. Down another is more of the same under worse conditions.
I hope we can plan for 2026 (and beyond). Speaking of new leaders, we have a chance politically to do something profound in 2026 - build a whole slate of gubernatorial candidates that are good on housing and that have publicly promised to support a viable plan to actually make change before being elected. Virtually every viable candidate will want to be good on housing, and it is up to us housers to be smart in how we approach this. Let them distinguish themselves elsewhere - we can create a smart platform and plan that they can pledge to support, rather than let folks dovetail to a few niche ideas or broad platitudes. This can then set us up for 2028, when the ballot could become transformative in another historic election.
The voucher expansion dream is part of my Project 2029. Part of responding to what will come from Washington is to resist, whether through the State or through our Federal representatives. But it also means having bigger and bolder plans. Top of mind for me is doubling down on direct cash for housing - there is no way to solve our housing crisis with the gap between incomes and housing costs so high (we can only reduce costs by so much). I’m super excited about Lateefah Simon in Washington, and hoping to support her to become a true champion of increased vouchers. We will have to fight big terrible ideas with big good ideas, and this is one of the most important things the federal government can do.
I hope we can keep pushing, ideally together. There are so many ways to improve California's housing system, and most are fully compatible. Many of our priority lists can be made to work together. Housing is large, massive, complex, with room for almost everyone. It’s only a zero sum game if we let it be.
Getting Ready
If we fast forward a few weeks, I hope the fires in SoCal will have been contained, and that the long road to recovering and rebuilding can properly begin. While we have seen fire before, this is absolutely next level - it’s January! - and the worst may not yet be over.
I’m sure I will write about this recovery at some point, and will keep thinking about all my people in the Southland. I’ll also keep writing about the long road ahead of us as a state - about insurance, about where and how we build, and even about my own struggles and worries when it comes to keeping my home safe. This has extra meaning right now, especially with what is happening to friends down south, and with the newest addition to my own house.
I’ll come back to the issues where I feel I have something useful to offer on housing, from big visions on how to restructure the housing industries to wonkier dives into vouchers and the emerging use of Medicaid for housing. We’re lining up a great group of housers for Housing After Dark Season 3 - become a sponsor! - and we will do our best to feature some of the best housers in the business.
As for that other fire, the one that will surely get worse in a few weeks, that’s a subject that deserves a proper post. See you all next week.
Alex
Wyatt was inspired by the poet Robert Hass to write this book about the “fires” which shaped California. Hass gave him four - the Spanish wild oat (which reshaped landscapes and ecologies), the 1906 Earthquake and fire, and WWII. Wyatt added the 1965 Watts Riots and the fire of racism.
That is the lesson for me, just not y’all.
In my defense, I’m a new parent, so I’m tired enough to be delirious but also I have no choice but to both hope and grind.
If people would like a list of my errors, I’m happy to provide one.
In a hopeful sign, the Governor snuck an announcement about a major reorg of the Housing and Homelessness agency’s (California Housing and Homelessness Agency) into a budget announcement the day before this post came out. This has been a focus for the Secretary, and a hopeful sign that folks are listening to her.